Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jan 25, 2023
Date Accepted: Jun 16, 2023
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Preventing Athlete Malnutrition through an Integrative Clinician-Supported App: Formative Research and App Description
ABSTRACT
Background:
Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) as a consequence of athlete malnutrition remains a prominent issue, though it remains under-recognized in part due to the perceived outward health of athletes. The Eat2Win app was designed to combat RED-S and athlete malnutrition by providing education, behavior modification and connection with expert sports dietitians to athletes and sport professionals (professionals who work with athletes e.g., sport coaches, athletic trainers).
Objective:
A formative research approach was used to obtain opinions and establish preferences for a sports nutrition app in the target population (app end-users: athletes and sport professionals).
Methods:
Formative research topics included nutrition educational content, modes of in-app information and communication delivery, motivations and barriers to meal choices, and opinions on novel app functions. The purpose of this formative research was to inform additional developments of the Eat2Win app towards combatting RED-S and malnutrition in athletes.
Results:
Survey respondents (n=1352) reported a high interest in sports nutrition topics and provided key information regarding preferred preferences on modes of information and communication delivery along with motivators and barriers to their meal choices. Notably, survey respondents provided positive feedback and interest utilizing a novel function of the app: real-time meal feedback through food photography.
Conclusions:
The Eat2Win app is designed to combat RED-S and athlete malnutrition. Results from this study provide critical information on end-user opinions and preferences and will be used to further develop the Eat2Win app. Future research will aim to determine whether the Eat2Win app can prevent RED-S and the risk of athlete malnutrition to improve both health and performance.
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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.